Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Every year for Samhain and Halloween I post my current top five horror books or movies on my blog. I am going to have to do something a little different this year since I have not read or watched much horror in this last year.

Life has been horrific enough.

This year I would like to offer my Top 5 Halloween Soundtrack songs.1. The Halloween Theme By John Carpenter or Celldweller2. Pet Cemetery By the Ramones3. Transylvanian Concubine By Rasputina4. The Black Rider By Tom Waits5. People Are Strange By The Doors

There it is like it, or not.

Sorry, Rob Zombie, Ozzy and Manson didn’t make the list this year. I would like to mention that anything by Los Straightjackets and Famous Monsters (former White Zombie bassist, Sean Yseult’s band) are all great spooky party greats.

If you are looking for a groovy, ghoulish party to attend The Mockingbird Book Emporium will be hosting a costume party on Friday the 29th. Costumes are a must, but if you bring a snack or a cover dish of some kind…you get a FREE BOOK!

If you are looking for horror this year from your friendly neighborhood J. Trav…I suggest my new book, Eclectic Collection. Eclectic Collection and my story in Toe Tags 2 will be the last horror I produce. E. C. only has 6 out of 15 that are horror, but it should still give you a good Halloween read and introduce you to my other work.

Until next…Remember: You can pick your friends and if they piss you off…you can pick where to bury them too.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

I was recently asked to talk to a group of high school kids about the importance of reading and promote the book store, for “Teen Read Week.”

I was instantly excited and interested in turning these young minds onto some great books. The theme of the first event was “Books with Beat.” As a fan of Kerouac and Burroughs I agreed with the "Books with Beat" theme and I had a few ideas.

This pipe dream of a neat presentation was quickly shat upon when I was told we should probably avoid "The Beats." The person I talked to told me “The Beats” may be "too much" for the high school. It was at this point I was ready to duck out of the event all together.

There isn't anything covered in their books that isn’t shown in an episode of Jersey Shore or an Eminem music video. The Beats were about self discovery and expression. Isn't that what high school is all about? Most of these kids are already experimenting with most of these ideas, and pretending they're not is only ignoring the elephant in the room and making the problem worse.

I could go on and on about Burroughs, but Kerouac is one of my top five authors and to keep me from talking about them surely means I would be expected to avoid Mark Twain, Chuck Palahniuk and any other controversial or formerly banned author. Surely if I went through with the presentation I would have all the freedom in the world to talk about Twilight or Dan Brown…fuck that!

The moral of the story is: a) It great if people are reading almost anything, but if people don’t open their minds they are only closing their eyes b) Learn a little about who you invite to talk at your school. If you don’t want a free thinker with an opinion don’t invite me.

Wake up!

We have a lot to learn about society and life from those who came before us. The Beats were the literary voices of a generation in the same way Twain and Thoreau were for their generation.

*noteSpeaking of Twilight… I have tried to like this franchise and I’m happy it has kids reading, but I just can’t get into it. It may not be your thing, my thing or some other person’s thing, but I am sick of people bashing it for “turning vampires gay.”

i.e stupid Facebook groups like “When I was a kid vampires sucked blood, not cock.”

If anyone turned vampires gay it was Anne Rice. The Vampire Chronicles are filled with young boy “love” and living forever. That is gay and pretty fucked up. Being gay is fine with me, but the young boy thing is crazy shit. No thanks.

At least Edward and Jacob are trying to get in a girl/woman’s pants…until the last book when Jacob turns into a creepy pedo too, but I digress. Anne Rice sucks just as much as Stephanie Myer. If you want a cool vampire book pick up The Strain by Del Toror and Hogan or just read Dracula.

I’ve wondered WAY off the beaten path so I will bring this rant to a close.